The value of industrial heritage in the development of high-tech skills and better competitiveness
In such controversial times, marked by crises and change, Italian industry is trying to find new paths towards a better “future-oriented history”, relying on the country’s heritage of ideas, knowledge and experience to redefine the principles of competitiveness, and emphasising the strength of “industrial humanism”, which is now evolving into “digital humanism”. The use of a term recalling the past – heritage – it’s helpful when thinking about how to build stronger production foundations in this era of “selective re-globalisation” (as mentioned in previous blog posts) and in markets that have become tougher and more demanding. Fundamentally, industry is facing a true cultural challenge.
The concept under consideration is one that entails what can be termed “the future of memory”, situated within a critical relationship between historical awareness and the will to achieve sustainable innovation. As such, Italian entrepreneurs, proponents of the so-called “polytechnic culture”, now have the responsibility to invest in our heritage (in productive sites, products and processes, research methods and activities, patents, industrial and market relations, languages) and use it as leverage to attain better competitiveness, as well as environmental and social sustainable development. The Stati Generali del Patrimonio Industriale (General assembly on industrial heritage) conference, held in Rome from 9 to 11 June and organised by AIPAI (Italian association for industrial archaeological heritage) and TICCIH (International committee for the conservation of the industrial heritage), as well as Museimpresa (Italian association of business archives and corporate museums), is both a key event and an open acknowledgment of this entrepreneurial spirit, embodying a vital relationship between the academic and corporate worlds, between history and future. It’s an event that recognises the role that nostalgia has in this context but minimises any sense of “retropia”, Zygmunt Bauman’s concept that well encapsulates the feeling of delusion experienced by those who idealise the past, finding it more reassuring, and are incapable of looking to the future “with hope and trust”.
What’s the role, then, of historical awareness in corporate culture? And how to link it to the specific dimensions of entrepreneurship, i.e. creativity, innovation, growth? Why, in essence, should we invest in promoting industrial heritage and in corporate museums and archives?
Fernand Braudel, one of the major historians of the 20th century, provides us with an initial answer: “To have been is conditional to being” – in other words, history is always looking to the future.
We can also rely on the writings of Edmondo Berselli, an extraordinary author able to combine political and social observation with an ironic take on everyday habits and culture: “Life has to be saved in its entirety and there’s only one way to do this: rewrite it, transpose its breath on the page. Constantly revive it through memory.” Indeed, after its untimely demise, in 2010, we are left with some powerful memories of him, as well as his insightful books: “It’s a hermeneutic principle: readers change, listeners change, viewpoints change, so the text must change, too.” A text that captures past life, experience, knowledge and thus history, and therefore keeps on living.
Memory defies time and builds the foundations of the future. “The future of memory” is not actually an oxymoron, on the contrary, it’s a notion that has its place in the world of innovation, in the radical transformations that are galvanising the economy, production and consumption relationships, and industry.
The corporate museums and archives that are part of Museimpresa, an association founded more than 20 years ago by territorial entrepreneurial institutions Assolombarda and Confindustria, are a great example of this.
Indeed, what do we mean when we talk of “corporate culture”? We mean an aspect of general culture that knows how to integrate, in new ways and right here in Italy, humanities and scientific knowledge, projects and products, industry and services, human passion and sophisticated technologies. In a nutshell, a multidisciplinary, “polytechnic culture” – a transformational culture.
Factories or, rather, digital neo-factories are emblematic sites of this and in these times characterised by the knowledge economy and Artificial Intelligence, it’s imperative to elaborate new intellectual concepts that can cross through the various disciplines – engineering and philosophy, mechatronics and sociology, economics and neuroscience – and thus draft new maps for knowing and doing.
These are precisely the dimensions of corporate culture that are driving the development of our companies in this new competitive context, made even more difficult and contentious by the dramatic events we are experiencing, amid the consequences wrought by climate change, pandemic, recession and war.
There truly is a great production capacity we can utilise to better compete, found in territories with the most enterprises, in industrial districts, in corporate networks and supply chains. Renzo Piano, an exponent of “social tailoring”, explains it further: “I spent my life building public spaces: schools, libraries, museums, theatres… And then streets, squares, bridges. Places where people share the same values and feelings, learn about tolerance. Urban spaces that celebrate the ritual of meeting with others, where the city is understood as civilisation. Places for a better world that can light up the eyes of those who pass through them.”
Here is where we can start anew – from an urban civilisation that embraces change and builds a more balanced relationship with its territory, and from an industry that sinks the roots of its international competitiveness into regional wisdom, blending industrial heritage with a view to the future.
Corporate museums and archives and the cultural and academic associations that deal with industrial heritage reveal, in this context, special dimensions and characteristics. They are sites for the preservation of History, which is narrated through products, images, documents, patents, employment contracts, technical drawings, etc. They are evidence of the relationships between manufacturing and its surrounding territories, they’re born within an entrepreneurial path and tell us how the past informs innovation.
Underlying all this is the awareness of a strong bond between cultural heritage and a corporate attitude for generating work, well-being, social inclusion. Objects and documents clearly illustrate a culture deeply rooted in the ability to “do, and do good”, just as material culture has now come to represent a key aspect of history and general knowledge (as expounded by the circle of historians surrounding the French journal Annales d’histoire économique et sociale (Records of economic and social history). Thus, History also comprises the history of factories, production, services, the relations behind economic and social change.
The concept of design is an undisputed proof of this, as it entails quality, beauty, functionality, distinctiveness, because a design item – be it industrial robots or components from the automotive, aviation, mechatronic, chemical and rubber sectors – always embodies a country’s image as well as its many qualities.
Gio Ponti, one of the most prominent Italian architects of the post-war period, who designed the Pirelli Tower (symbol of the most dynamic Italian industrial identity for the past 60 years) summarises the notion in just a few key words: “In Italy, art fell in love with industry. And that’s why industry is now a cultural phenomenon.” It’s also why industrial heritage and corporate museums, together with all the places, objects and documents they preserve and promote, have essentially become the ambassadors of Italian style in the world – and as such, competitive assets, too.
In such controversial times, marked by crises and change, Italian industry is trying to find new paths towards a better “future-oriented history”, relying on the country’s heritage of ideas, knowledge and experience to redefine the principles of competitiveness, and emphasising the strength of “industrial humanism”, which is now evolving into “digital humanism”. The use of a term recalling the past – heritage – it’s helpful when thinking about how to build stronger production foundations in this era of “selective re-globalisation” (as mentioned in previous blog posts) and in markets that have become tougher and more demanding. Fundamentally, industry is facing a true cultural challenge.
The concept under consideration is one that entails what can be termed “the future of memory”, situated within a critical relationship between historical awareness and the will to achieve sustainable innovation. As such, Italian entrepreneurs, proponents of the so-called “polytechnic culture”, now have the responsibility to invest in our heritage (in productive sites, products and processes, research methods and activities, patents, industrial and market relations, languages) and use it as leverage to attain better competitiveness, as well as environmental and social sustainable development. The Stati Generali del Patrimonio Industriale (General assembly on industrial heritage) conference, held in Rome from 9 to 11 June and organised by AIPAI (Italian association for industrial archaeological heritage) and TICCIH (International committee for the conservation of the industrial heritage), as well as Museimpresa (Italian association of business archives and corporate museums), is both a key event and an open acknowledgment of this entrepreneurial spirit, embodying a vital relationship between the academic and corporate worlds, between history and future. It’s an event that recognises the role that nostalgia has in this context but minimises any sense of “retropia”, Zygmunt Bauman’s concept that well encapsulates the feeling of delusion experienced by those who idealise the past, finding it more reassuring, and are incapable of looking to the future “with hope and trust”.
What’s the role, then, of historical awareness in corporate culture? And how to link it to the specific dimensions of entrepreneurship, i.e. creativity, innovation, growth? Why, in essence, should we invest in promoting industrial heritage and in corporate museums and archives?
Fernand Braudel, one of the major historians of the 20th century, provides us with an initial answer: “To have been is conditional to being” – in other words, history is always looking to the future.
We can also rely on the writings of Edmondo Berselli, an extraordinary author able to combine political and social observation with an ironic take on everyday habits and culture: “Life has to be saved in its entirety and there’s only one way to do this: rewrite it, transpose its breath on the page. Constantly revive it through memory.” Indeed, after its untimely demise, in 2010, we are left with some powerful memories of him, as well as his insightful books: “It’s a hermeneutic principle: readers change, listeners change, viewpoints change, so the text must change, too.” A text that captures past life, experience, knowledge and thus history, and therefore keeps on living.
Memory defies time and builds the foundations of the future. “The future of memory” is not actually an oxymoron, on the contrary, it’s a notion that has its place in the world of innovation, in the radical transformations that are galvanising the economy, production and consumption relationships, and industry.
The corporate museums and archives that are part of Museimpresa, an association founded more than 20 years ago by territorial entrepreneurial institutions Assolombarda and Confindustria, are a great example of this.
Indeed, what do we mean when we talk of “corporate culture”? We mean an aspect of general culture that knows how to integrate, in new ways and right here in Italy, humanities and scientific knowledge, projects and products, industry and services, human passion and sophisticated technologies. In a nutshell, a multidisciplinary, “polytechnic culture” – a transformational culture.
Factories or, rather, digital neo-factories are emblematic sites of this and in these times characterised by the knowledge economy and Artificial Intelligence, it’s imperative to elaborate new intellectual concepts that can cross through the various disciplines – engineering and philosophy, mechatronics and sociology, economics and neuroscience – and thus draft new maps for knowing and doing.
These are precisely the dimensions of corporate culture that are driving the development of our companies in this new competitive context, made even more difficult and contentious by the dramatic events we are experiencing, amid the consequences wrought by climate change, pandemic, recession and war.
There truly is a great production capacity we can utilise to better compete, found in territories with the most enterprises, in industrial districts, in corporate networks and supply chains. Renzo Piano, an exponent of “social tailoring”, explains it further: “I spent my life building public spaces: schools, libraries, museums, theatres… And then streets, squares, bridges. Places where people share the same values and feelings, learn about tolerance. Urban spaces that celebrate the ritual of meeting with others, where the city is understood as civilisation. Places for a better world that can light up the eyes of those who pass through them.”
Here is where we can start anew – from an urban civilisation that embraces change and builds a more balanced relationship with its territory, and from an industry that sinks the roots of its international competitiveness into regional wisdom, blending industrial heritage with a view to the future.
Corporate museums and archives and the cultural and academic associations that deal with industrial heritage reveal, in this context, special dimensions and characteristics. They are sites for the preservation of History, which is narrated through products, images, documents, patents, employment contracts, technical drawings, etc. They are evidence of the relationships between manufacturing and its surrounding territories, they’re born within an entrepreneurial path and tell us how the past informs innovation.
Underlying all this is the awareness of a strong bond between cultural heritage and a corporate attitude for generating work, well-being, social inclusion. Objects and documents clearly illustrate a culture deeply rooted in the ability to “do, and do good”, just as material culture has now come to represent a key aspect of history and general knowledge (as expounded by the circle of historians surrounding the French journal Annales d’histoire économique et sociale (Records of economic and social history). Thus, History also comprises the history of factories, production, services, the relations behind economic and social change.
The concept of design is an undisputed proof of this, as it entails quality, beauty, functionality, distinctiveness, because a design item – be it industrial robots or components from the automotive, aviation, mechatronic, chemical and rubber sectors – always embodies a country’s image as well as its many qualities.
Gio Ponti, one of the most prominent Italian architects of the post-war period, who designed the Pirelli Tower (symbol of the most dynamic Italian industrial identity for the past 60 years) summarises the notion in just a few key words: “In Italy, art fell in love with industry. And that’s why industry is now a cultural phenomenon.” It’s also why industrial heritage and corporate museums, together with all the places, objects and documents they preserve and promote, have essentially become the ambassadors of Italian style in the world – and as such, competitive assets, too.